


Tranquilizingly Tangled

by Kiranokira



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, I Solemnly Swear Never to Attempt Canon Compliance for Kingdom Hearts, M/M, Magic Going Haywire, Otherwise Known as Sora and Riku, RIP Gummiphone #10, Riku Being Moody (Although He's Kinda Justified Here), Sora Being Riku's Stability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 19:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17669063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiranokira/pseuds/Kiranokira
Summary: Chip pushes Dale to the side and says in one breath, “Riku got into a lot of trouble in Nightfall Town yesterday and there’s a big problem with the spell the king is using to help him, and Riku needs you!”Dale, while nodding, kicks Chip.A small scuffle between the brothers ensues, but Sora’s attention has been redirected to more urgent business. The stark delivery ofRiku needs you!is throbbing in his heart.





	Tranquilizingly Tangled

**Author's Note:**

> Full Disclosure About My Kingdom Hearts Knowledge: I've played Kingdom Hearts I and II, and over the last two months I've watched twelve of those forty-minute THE BIG OLE PLOT OF KINGDOM HEARTS explanation videos, and I'm still lost, SO YOU KNOW WHAT. I did my own thing here. Here's all I used as a basis for this fic: Sora and Riku are in love (and haven't said anything about it yet 'cos they're fluffy but dumb), and they're somewhere in their early twenties, and they go on heroic rescue adventures for King Mickey. So whether you know enough to MAKE one of those explanation videos or you're as uninformed as I am, WELCOME TO LEVEL 0 AND I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE FIC. \:D/

Riku wakes up to a new world every day. Once, it’s a city near a lake with long slopes and friendly people. Another day, it’s a village in the mountains where everyone knows everyone and everything is made by hand. Today, it’s a bustling underwater post town on the route that above-ground folk use to reach the empire on the ocean floor.

Every day is somewhere different, but Riku has been through so many of them now that he’s grown used to the change.

Terribly, excruciatingly used to it.

He doesn’t remember what was before this, or even if there _was_ anything before this. He’s not even sure of his own name, even though everyone in every world calls him Riku, and that at least _feels_ right.

Unlike everything else around him.

The only true constants he has—apart from his clothes, which never seem to change—are the ache inside him, whispering that he doesn’t belong here, and the certainty that a crucial part of him is missing. That he’s got to find it or else he’ll be anxious like this forever.

He has the strongest feeling that it’s a person he’s meant to find.

But the days carry on relentlessly, the world and people around him changing no matter what he does to try and interfere.

What’s more, some of the days feel...unusually short. He has no frame of reference—none he can remember, at least—but he can’t shake the feeling that they’re normally more consistent than this. Many days only last minutes before the sun plummets from the sky and the moon shoots up to replace it. Riku’s not sure how long a day is _supposed_ to be, but this _feels_ wrong.

Worst of all, he’s alone—in every sense that matters. No one he talks to believes that there’s something strange going on. Everyone insists that they’ve known Riku for ages, and they all present the same basic story when he insists that he doesn’t know _them_.

”Your name is Riku,“ they say, ”and you’re a good friend.”

Any further skeptical probing from Riku results in puzzled frowns or good-natured jokes.

Eventually, Riku gave up trying to enlist help. He’s resigned to the world changing. To the unnerving people and their empty smiles. To this horrible longing for his missing person, whoever they are.

He’s so tired.

He’s lost all sense of time.

Will there be an end to this?

•

Sora eases the Gummi Ship incrementally into the port, holding his breath and squinting. The moment he’s shut off the engine, he expels a gust of breath and slumps into his chair. “I did it.”

Normally, he’d get a cheerful “welcome back!” from Chip and Dale over the communications system, but he’s not expecting miracles from the smoking panel before him.

“I knew I could get us home safe,” Sora tells the interior of the ship with a proud smile. “Didn’t I say I would?”

Its silence is telling.

The king will likely expect Sora to be honest in his mission report, but Sora would _really_ rather skip over some parts. Like the first day, when a band of thieves nabbed a few mildly integral pieces of the Gummi Ship and summarily fed them to a mecha-eating dragon. That little mishap left Sora stranded for three days on his own without a communication system. And stabilizers. And navigation. And…some other things he’s pretty surprised he could fly without.

With such a rocky three-day mission behind him, it’s kind of sad that docking the Gummi Ship without incurring any further damage will probably end up being Sora’s high point of the trip—unless someone’s waiting outside his ship with food.

As the door opens, he decides to claim that the rest of the damage—sustained while he tried to avoid space debris and failed—was done by the thieves, even if no one believes him. The instant he opens his mouth to call out, though, he’s tumbling onto the walkway.

“ _Ow!_ What the—”

“No time!” Chip and Dale yell from the open doorway of the ship.

It would seem that they shoved him.

Sora blinks at them as they dash over on four legs and yank at his pointer fingers with an unnerving amount of strength for two chipmunks.

“What’s—”

“The king!” shouts Dale.

“You need to see him right away!” Chip clarifies.

Then, together, they yell, “For Riku!”

The small but relentless part of Sora that always worries about Riku flares into something desperate, and Sora’s pushed up onto his knees even before he’s fully registered the extent of his own panic. “What’s happened?”

As Chip opens his mouth to respond, Dale shakes a paw at him and demands, “Where’s your Gummiphone?”

Crushed by a robot and then melted in lava.

Just like Gummiphones #5 and #8.

Another detail Sora would prefer to skip in his report to the king.

“Well…”

“Later!” Chip pushes Dale to the side and says in one breath, “Riku got into a lot of trouble in Nightfall Town yesterday, so they’re trying to keep him asleep while they fix it, but it’s not working! There’s a big problem with the spell the king is using, and Riku needs you!”

Dale, while nodding, kicks Chip.

A small scuffle between the brothers ensues, but Sora’s attention has been redirected to more urgent business. The stark delivery of _Riku needs you!_ is throbbing in his heart.

He says, “Got it,” and springs to his feet.

He’s only halfway across the bay when he hears Chip squawk.

“ _What did you do to the ship, Sora?_ ”

•

Riku’s anxiety elevates to a sincere level of panic.

The days are getting shorter and shorter, and yet no one seems alarmed. Not even when the days end with the sun still in the sky, people just winking out of existence along with their surroundings, only to be instantaneously replaced by new people and new surroundings, everything bright and animated and _strange_.

Riku wonders whether any of this is real. But what else could there _be?_ This is all he’s ever known, even if his mind is holding onto the shape of _something_ that came before.

Soon, the days are only seconds long, and even when Riku closes his eyes, he can’t escape the sensations of the world changing around him. The climate rises or drops, the lighting brightens or darkens, and the texture of the ground underneath him shifts. Sometimes it’s a floor. Sometimes rock. Water. Grass. Sand. Mud. Carpet.

Worlds flash by steadily like the drum of a heartbeat.

This must be the end, then. When everything falls to pieces.

But why did any of this even _exist?_ Why is he _the only one_ who sees what’s happening?

When the intervals between worlds are too short to even be felt, Riku squeezes his eyes shut and his breath catches from pure fear.

He’s alone. He shouldn’t be. Someone should be with him.

Someone.

Somewhere.

_Where are you?_

•

Sora knows he’s arrived at the correct long hallway (after half a dozen wrong ones) when he sees Queen Minnie standing by herself before a closed door in the distance. She seems to have heard Sora’s frantic approach, because she’s already looking in his direction as he turns the corner.

He tries not to let the fear get too strong of a hold on him as he nears her at a jog. “Your Majesty, is—”

“Please don’t panic, Sora,” she says. “He’s not in any critical danger, I promise.”

Well. “O-oh,” he says. That _does_ ease the worst of his fears.

But she _didn’t_ say, “There’s nothing wrong with Riku at all,” so Sora still feels comprised of 90% panic. He won’t feel true calm until he sees Riku safe and intact with his own eyes.

The queen seems to sense this and smiles with warmth. She touches the back of Sora’s hand and says, “Breathe in.”

For her sake, Sora inhales until his chest has expanded almost to the point of bursting.

She giggles. “Good. Now out.”

His breath bursts out of him in a long gush, and maybe it isn’t his imagination that some of the panic goes with it.

“Very good,” Queen Minnie says. “Now, let me explain what happened, and how you can help the king. And Riku.”

•

A horrible noise pierces through all the worlds as they change, and Riku obeys a primal instinct screaming to make himself as small as possible. He sits, tightly curled around his knees, and tries to believe what he suspects—that none of this is real. His memory feels like it’s brimming with decades, turbulent with the vestiges from the millions of worlds and people he’s seen. But it all feels shallow, too. Like some part of him knows that a far more intricate world exists than the silhouettes he’s seen.

Like…he’s part of a world that…needs him.

That _someone_ needs him.

•

Queen Minnie takes Sora’s hand and leads him into the room. Sora feels Riku’s presence from his magic even before he sees Riku’s body laid out on the long table in the center of the room.

“Riku!”

Queen Minnie squeezes his hand and reminds him, “He needs you.”

The king’s expression is locked in deep concentration as he contains the vast cloud of tumultuous blasts and miasmatic vapors carrying Riku’s magical signature. Across the table from him, Donald tries to keep Riku asleep.

The room is outfitted like an old classroom for magic, with actual cauldrons sitting empty along the walls and ancient spell markings on scrolls of parchment stuck to the stone walls. The king likely chose it for its fortifications against the kind of erratic magic Riku’s unconsciously projecting.

When Donald catches sight of Sora, he yells, “Sora! Help us!” and quacks in frustration as Riku clenches his fists and the dangerous cloud of magic flares out and expands. Queen Minnie didn’t mention how long they’ve been at this, but Donald’s strength must be flagging with Riku visibly struggling to jolt himself out of the spell.

Chip and Dale were right to hurry him up here.

•

All at once, the changing stops.

The roaring maelstrom of jarring lights and chaotic textures and unpredictable temperatures just—stops.

If this is the end, it’s far quieter than Riku expected it to be.

He’s a little curious about what the end looks like, but his fear is far stronger, so he keeps his eyes shut.

Underneath him, a thick bed of sand slowly materializes, and a soft, warm light presses against his eyelids.

What world could this be?

From somewhere far away, padded footsteps shuffling through the sand break the enveloping silence.

•

Sora slices into the spell per the king’s instructions and follows Donald’s advice to keep his eyes closed until all the myriad sensations converge into one. When he opens his eyes, he takes in the strangeness of waves that move without sound and light that seems to exist everywhere and nowhere, casting not a single shadow.

And then there’s Riku.

Huddled on his own by the water.

“ _Riku._ ”

•

The gentle brush of familiar magic calls Riku back to himself, and the memories are all there as if they were never gone.

“ _Sora._ ”

•

Sora laughs as Riku yanks him down and into his arms.

•

Riku hides his red face in Sora’s shoulder and refuses to emerge for a long time.

•

“So this is…where exactly?”

“It’s home. Does it…not look like it? I tried to get it as close as I could.”

When Sora was asked to describe the one place to simulate that would calm Riku down the fastest, he launched into a confident depiction of Destiny Island—but given Riku’s reaction, he’s not sure he did it justice.

Riku gives the beach another cursory glance, a small smile pulling at his lips. “It does,” he says. “There’re just a few differences.” He jerks a thumb at the shack behind them without turning his head. “That’s white, not gray.”

Sora twists around to look, then opens his mouth to argue. When he casts back through his memories, though, he can admit that he was maybe thinking of it during a time of day when shadows played a significant role in the landscape. Also, he was under a _tiny_ bit of pressure.

“Okay, fine,” he says. “But other than that, I did pretty well, right?”

Riku eyes him sidelong with a stunning amount of playful arrogance for someone who was clinging to Sora like the world was ending a few minutes ago.

Sora pushes him over.

When Riku sits up again, pretending he still has dignity, he says, “So, I’m asleep?”

Sora dearly hopes so. Donald looked close to whacking Riku on the head if the spell didn’t settle him down soon.

Opting to omit that part, Sora tells Riku, “The king put you under a spell that was supposed to calm you down, but for some reason it didn’t work the way it was supposed to. He said it was doing the opposite and making you more afraid.”

Riku says nothing, but he doesn’t look happy about that.

According to Queen Minnie, a simple mission in Nighfall Town went haywire, forcing Riku’s magic to attack him and everything around him. The complexities in stifling the danger without injuring Riku made a tempest of problems for the king when he was summoned.

“Do you remember what happened?” Sora asks.

Riku’s pale skin quickly broadcasts his embarrassment through a dash of red over his nose and cheeks. The temptation to grin with affection is strong, but Sora manages through iron willpower to suppress it.

“Not…entirely,” Riku says. “Someone very stupid was messing with Nightfall Town’s chronology to make time repeat itself. I found the girl responsible and confronted her, and then she threw some spell at me that…” He pauses, and the way his nose wrinkles is so unbearably adorable that Sora’s left hand twitches with the powerful urge to poke it. “I didn’t see it coming, and…I…don’t remember anything after that.”

King Mickey was apparently only alerted to the situation after Riku’s magic had demolished two thirds of Nightfall Town. The king arrived in the world, put the culprit under Goofy’s guard, and left soon afterward with Riku’s unconscious body and lashes of the unbridled magic barely held inside a shielded bubble.

“This isn’t my proudest moment,” Riku shares. The blush has spread to his ears.

“We’re both having an off day,” Sora says.

Riku restrains himself only for a second before he glances sideways. “What did _you_ do?”

“Kinda ruined my Gummi Ship. And melted my Gummiphone. And cried a little when I got lost trying to find the room they took you to.”

Riku doesn’t snort the way Sora expects him to. Instead, his smile has turned soft.

They watch the waves climb the sand in silence for a while, and Sora wonders how long it’ll take King Mickey to restore Riku’s control over his magic. He’s still not sure why his presence here has made such a difference, but—

“I was trying to find you,” Riku says. “I wouldn’t rest until I found you.”

It isn’t the first time today Sora has tried and failed to stifle tears.

•

King Mickey, Queen Minnie, and Donald share a sigh of relief as they watch Sora’s magic slowly soothe Riku’s.

The two magics combined form a peaceful, sparkling tangle of color and light overhead, and they’re what Riku and Sora see first when they open their eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to do research while I was writing this. Here's how that went:
> 
> Me: Maybe I'll research a little.  
> Wiki: ["Sora is the original persona of his own Heartless and Roxas, the source of Xion's memories, the bearer of Ventus's heart and the physical template of Vanitas."](https://www.khwiki.com/Sora)  
> Me: Fuck this. \:D/
> 
> (I do plan on playing KH3 eventually, so if you'd like to watch me suffer, I invite you to chuckle at my abject confusion on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hadakanomind).)


End file.
